Bureaucratic Battle Blunted Libya Attack 'Talking Points'

By

Siobhan Gorman and

Adam Entous

Updated Dec. 4, 2012 9:59 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON—Behind the political showdown over the deadly U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, are a few dozen heavily edited words.

The 94-word intelligence summary emerged from a daylong email debate between more than two dozen intelligence officials, in which they contested and whittled the available evidence into a bland summary with no reference to al Qaeda, an assessment the administration now acknowledges was wide of the...